


Soul

by indiachick



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean Winchester and Feelings, Dissociation, Experimental Style, Gen, I have a lot of feelings about some shit in canon ok, I have a lot of feelings about some things NOT in canon ok, I'm Sorry Sam Winchester, Meta, Psychological Trauma, Sam Winchester Angst, Sam Winchester and Dean Winchester Need to Learn How to Talk, Some kinda artsy shit, Supernatural Season 13 Spoilers, The Author Regrets Everything, happy birthday sam, i guess?, idk what the fuck this is, like how Sam as his own person doesn't exist anymore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 05:16:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14513358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indiachick/pseuds/indiachick
Summary: “Happy birthday to me,” he says. “Aren’t you going to give me a gift?”Dean looks at him. “Yeah? What do you want?”Something,Sam thinks.Anything. I can’t feel a thing.





	Soul

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [ohsam's Birthday Hurt Comfort meme 2018](https://ohsam.livejournal.com/938481.html), for crowroad3's prompt of "soul-cleansing"

 

 

 

**soul**

**s** **əʊl/**

**noun**

 

 

 

> noun: soul; plural noun: souls
> 
>  1. **the spiritual or immaterial part of a human being or animal, regarded as immortal.**
> 
>   * a person's moral or emotional nature or sense of identity.
> 

> 
> _"in the depths of your soul, you knew he couldn’t be trusted with himself"_
> 
> **synonyms: _spirit, psyche, (inner) self, innermost self, (inner) ego_**

       

 

 

“Dean,” says your brother. He’s so close now, close enough that you can see into his eyes, and it’s like looking through a hole in a door and wondering if you’ll see someone there. 

 

Someone you know.

 

Maybe.

 

“Sam,” you say. You’re quite sure it’s past twelve-o-clock, and if it isn’t, it doesn’t really matter. “Isn’t today your birthday?”

 

Sam looks at you. “Happy Birthday,” he says, promptly. You blink and look away, because you don’t see someone you know, do you? You’ve never liked that you could know him this well yet not have a map to him, a point to mark where you are, a standard to measure him with.

 

Sam, forever, is the most impenetrable person you’ll know.

 

You’re still full of adrenaline from a hunt. You suddenly itch for steel to pare him open with, to understand, even as you tell yourself _wrong, wrong_ , backing away from that feeling till it calls out to you: _you_ _’re getting colder, Dean._

 

“Sammy,” you say. There are flecks of red on his cheek, like a spatter, and you fan your thumb over it so it smears, disappears into his skin. “Let’s talk.”

 

He pretends he likes talking. Always has. But you think back on everything that has touched him, that has left a mark on him, and you’ve never talked about any of that, have you? 

 

“Drink your coffee.” Sam says.

 

“We need to _talk_.”

 

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Sam says. “I’m fine. Better than fine. I feel great.”

 

He smiles. You think back to the hunt. It’s the fourth in a row that he’s been so calm about, so unbothered, so reckless. It’s not frightening you. You know there’s nothing you can do.

 

You were so angry, you think. When you came back from the rift, from that gray otherworld where Charlie— your Charlie—was a warrior whetted against iron-stone. When you came back from that place where your mother is, where your nephilim is—you were so angry. Broke things—you were that  angry. And then, with Gabriel…You wondered how to fix this. Where to find archangel Grace. You felt thwarted, led by a leash to hope so false that it hurt now to think that you could ever think it would’ve been that easy.

 

You know how this works. First few levels of the game are always easy. You’re now in Level 13, closer and closer to the end, and the Big Bosses are just coming out to play. You should’ve known the sacrifices would be bigger this time, deeper. Marrow-cuts.

 

You knew, in the depths of your soul, that your brother couldn’t be trusted with himself.

 

“Cas said it could have killed you,” you say. “Taking the grace out. It should have killed you.”

 

“Well, it didn’t,” Sam says. “Happy birthday to me. Aren’t you going to give me a gift?”

 

 

 

> **2\. emotional or intellectual energy or intensity, especially as revealed in a work of art or an artistic performance.**
> 
> _his interpretation lacked soul”_
> 
> **synonyms** : _inspiration, feeling, emotion, passion, animation_
> 
>  

 

Here, a list of things Sam Winchester is passionate about:

  

  * Murder movies, Game of Thrones, the interstate during the early hours of winter, a drink with Dean. That deep, dewy, dark heart of intense forests, hair products, weird Indie movies, non-weird action movies (don’t tell Dean), that one mixtape that Dean played on an endless fucking loop for six months straight (do _NOT_ tell Dean.)
  * The library in the bunker, old books with crackling spines, magic, the weird high of a hunt that went well.
  * Knowledge, knowledge, knowledge.
  * The rumble of the Impala, quiet nights spent playing cards on motel beds, the neon of the night when they pass through big cities.
  * Serial killers. Roller coasters. Chasing clues to their natural conclusions.
  * Dean, laughing. Dean, singing in the Impala. Dean, cracking a stupid, silly joke, wearing an ascot around his neck, calling him a _nerd_ , a _weirdo_. Commonplace, everyday Dean things.
  * The way it feels…safe, sometimes, late at night in the bunker when he doesn’t know what the next day will bring, when it is the quiet between apocalypses, when the only weight on his shoulder - at least temporarily - is the knowledge that they are entirely out of groceries and Dean is already sloshed and the task of going out to get them has clearly fallen to Sam.



 

He’s really passionate about that feeling. _Safety_. It’s all he’s ever really wanted - to be grounded, to be safe. That ship’s sailed a while ago, though, so he’ll take the next best thing: _making_ things safe. Making Mom safe, and Jack safe, and Cas safe, and Dean safe. The _world_ safe. He’s really pretty passionate about that stuff. Sometimes finds himself reciting the speech to himself. _This is my job. This is what I’m here to do._ Sometimes his interpretation of it is so soulful he almost believes it.

 

“Happy birthday to me,” he says. “Aren’t you going to give me a gift?”

 

Dean looks at him. “Yeah? What do you want?”

 

 _Something_ , Sam thinks. _Anything. I can_ _’t feel a thing._

 

Sam’s made his contribution to Apocalypse Round #3. Archangel Grace. Stupid, really, he knew the thing ran in his veins. Coulda spared a lot of time and effort on everyone’s part if only he remembered this a bit early. Taking Lucifer out of him had felt like _such_ a great idea. Losing the worst part of him for his passion—keeping the world safe.

 

 It’s weird though. He feels empty without it. Like maybe Lucifer was a bigger part of him than he was; like maybe when all that grace was gone, there was so little of him left that his own body thinks he lacks soul. It’s Sam Winchester, without _feeling_. It’s Sam Winchester, without the _passion_. It’s like the later Transformer movies: all bluster, no soul.

 

Everything’s just…happening. He’s watching it happen. Dean’s watching him watching it happen, and Dean’s worried, but it’s not like Sam’s gone soul-less, like he’d once been.

 

He’s just… _less_.

 

He’s just given so much of himself away to so many things that now that he’s just himself— soul cleansed of everything that isn’t him— he seems to be…not enough.

 

It kinda feels good. That’s what Dean’s maybe afraid of—that Sam thinks it kinda feels good.

 

Dean’s looking at him. Dean’s looking at him and probably thinking that Sam looks like nothing at all.

 

“Really,” Dean says. “What do you want? I’ll get you something. On me.”

 

Dean just wants to help. Sam thinks about that mixtape. Tries to conjure how it used to make him feel. Thinks about Dean. How _Dean_ used to make him feel.

 

He can’t really remember.

 

He feels very small in his body. Like there is a vastness between his heart and his limbs, a void of nothing. His gun, when he shoots with it, is far enough from his awareness that it feels like he’s watching it on Netflix. When he laughs—at _Dean_ , he laughs at Dean, Dean who wants to celebrate a _birthday_ —he sounds like he’s standing at the other end of a tunnel, connected to himself by a fraying cord, barely transmitting.

 

He’s only ever felt too much.

 

 _Maybe it’s nice,_ he thinks. _Like this. Maybe it’s nice_.

 

 

 

>  3.  **the essence or embodiment of a specified quality.**
> 
> _"he was the soul of discretion"_
> 
> **synonyms** :       _embodiment, personification, incarnation, epitome_

 

 

Sam’s head is like the mental equivalent of a hack-writer’s _shrug_. He’s a filler verb. Still, he thinks— he’s gotta try. That’s what the Winchesters do best, anyway. Try, try, try. Sam’s the very embodiment of _trying_. He tried one life, it didn’t fit him, so he tried something else. When that expelled him unceremoniously, with sulfur and brimstone, he tried something else. When one plan failed, another. When that failed, another. When they were all out of plans—look, look, there’s still _gotta_ be something we haven’t tried!

 

He tells Rowena that _hey, look, maybe we can change your fate._

 

He tells Dean that _hey, look, maybe there’s still some scarebrained scheme we haven’t tried_.

 

He tells Cas that _hey, I guess your species is dying, but here, take this Grace from me so we can go get the one thing that can help you repopulate._

 

He tells Mom and Jack—well not _tell_ them, but he _thinks_ at them: we’re coming. _Hold on. We’re coming. There’s nothing we wouldn’t do for you. No cost we wouldn’t pay._

 

He and Dean—they’re the _epitome_ of trying. It’s why they’ve been here so long. They’re like a fucking testimonial of _The Secret._ Bending the universe towards them with sheer force of will.

 

Sam can try a bit more.

 

_Once more, Sammy, with feeling!_

 

“Hmm,” he tells Dean. “How ‘bout some cake?”

 

 

 

> **4.** **an individual person.**
> 
>    _"there was not a soul in sight"_
> 
> **synonyms:** _person, human being, individual, man, woman, man, woman, or child, human, being, living soul, mortal, creature, body_

“You’re just a person,” you say. “You can’t fix everything. You can’t—let go of yourself to fix everything.”

“I can’t,” Sam says. “But _you_ can? How does that work, Dean? You leave me behind to go looking for Mom and Jack in the rift. You come back and say you _should_ have stayed behind, sacrificed yourself for the cause. But you won’t let _me_ do the same things? You won’t let me try? How does this work?”

You would have preferred if he said it angrily. You would have preferred if he shouted it, if he threw the fucking birthday cake in your face, if he stormed out the door. You would have preferred if your anger—still simmering in your belly, showing on your face—had any effect on him.

It doesn’t. None of it matters anymore.

Sam’s _trying_ —you can see it. You can see him trying. You can see him dredging up what he thinks is appropriate emotion: saying the lines, adding the right pauses, arranging his face into the right display of emotions. He’s _trying_. For you. For Mom and Jack. For Cas.

He’s trying and failing.

He sounds exactly like he’s reading a script.

 “You’re just one person,” you repeat, and knows he never was.

Never was his own person. Never was _only_ his own. Sam exists in combinations of things: Sam as a pawn of war, Sam as the Devil’s vessel, Sam as Dean’s brother. And now, pared of most of those things, you don’t know what he is. He doesn’t know what he is.

“Is this strawberry?” Sam asks, pointing to the cake. “It’s sweeter than I thought. Do you want a bite?”

“Make a wish,” you say, whipping out a tiny candle and your lighter. “Come on, Sammy. It’s not every day it’s your birthday. Make a wish.”

He looks confused. You think he’s thinking _but I don’t really want anything_. You think he’s thinking _I don’t know how to want something_.

You know how that feels. You’ve always wished _he_ wouldn’t.

He’s the one who feels for both of you. He’s the one who pulls both of you from the brink.

You don’t know what to do without him.

Sam scrunches up his nose. He blows out the candle.

You wish he didn’t look so cheerful. It’s weird—it’s his birthday, you’d think you _wanted_ him to look cheerful, but you don’t.

You don’t, you don’t, you don’t.

He’s approximating. You can see it in his eyes, how he’s calculating just the _right_ amount of cheer. It turns your stomach.

“Happy birthday,” you sing. Whole fucking song. Diner folks are looking at you— _you_ , in your blood-damp leather jacket, with your bruised face, in your big broad self with your bigger, broader brother. Singing like a child.

_Happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday, Sammy._

He gives you a laugh.

He sings along.

You tell yourself: _this is enough_.

He’s trying. You’re trying.

This has to be enough.


End file.
